Fluttering around like a bat? Have the goblins gobbled up your time? Are you in a demonic whirl to get your house ready for Halloween? Here are Uncialle's triple-tested tips and tricks for haunting your house inexpensively, easily -- and SPEEDILY! These tips are short on materials, downright stingy on time, and long on Halloween atmosphere! During the haunting season, Uncialle adds more tips, so visit often. Uncialle also accepts tips from other Halloweenies, and will be glad to share the best on this page!

13. Bobbing for apples? Try a jolt of red food coloring in the water.

12. Ravens are wonderfully Halloweeny (use plastic crow decoys; see the Sources Page for where to get them). The decoys are inexpensive, nearly indestructible, and look spectacular on gate posts, in a graveyard, on a fence, on your party table, or as a sign topper.

11. Get some of those squishy hookless plastic bass-fishing worms and put a handful in your kitchen and bathroom soap dishes. The little crawdads, squid, and octopi are equally creepy.

10. Hang small plastic spiders at face-height from thin threads and tape the ends of the threads to the tops of doorway moldings. This also works well with wet yarn or string.

9. Hollow out a head of purple cabbage and use it as a cauldron for chip dip. Blood-red salsa and blue corn chips are nice!

8. Put up a Halloween marquee screen saver message on your computer monitor, or make a Halloween screen saver in PowerPoint and let it run.

7. Replace your porchlight light bulbs with green ones. While looking spookily alien, they will still give enough light for safety.

6. Use one of those motion-detector "ribbit" frogs to guard your pathway. Make sure you have a light source opposite him, so he will work in the dark. I dislike the plastic-green color of these, so I have painted mine realistic colors. One I have painted black. A black frog is invisible in the dark. A croak from Uncialle's repainted black ribbit frog made a tough Army sergeant take an involuntary leap off the stronghold's spiral stairs, so have a care where you place them!

5. On Halloween night, tape down all your light switches and unplug your lamps. Fire in darkness IS Halloween. Create spooky atmosphere by using candles and lanterns only (except in the bathroom and in the kitchen while you are cooking).

4. Fall elections are coming up. Who is your favorite candidate for coroner? Get some nice "Smith for Coroner" signs for your yard and save them for future Halloweens. Last year Uncialle's candidate had a body outline on her campaign signs!

3. Make monster footprints up your sidewalk to your door with colored chalk. Children love to do this. One way to draw the footprints is for them to take giant steps, drawing outlines around their own shoes as they go, and then adding huge toes and claw marks. Try glow-in-the-dark chalk!

2. Spiderweb-stuff tips: Using push-pins, tack streamers of spiderweb stuff under the eaves of your house outside, where they can wave spookily in the breeze. With thread, tie a few streamers of spider stuff to a branch that's easily visible from your porch. Any masked critter looks more awful with a veil of spiderwebs drawn across its face and tied with thread at the throat (but don't do this if there is a real person inside trying to see out).

1. Spiderweb stuff is great for instant eerie atmosphere. Always keep a bag of the stuff (get at any dimestore) on hand! Take pins and stretch the material across your windows in very thin, irregular swags that are quite tight. To avoid pinholes in your walls, stick the pins in exactly between the wall and the window molding. (Careful -- don't do this on low windows if you have little ones!) Put a dim light in the room, so people inside and out can see your cobwebs. Try some on your mirrors. Don't forget to put in a fat plastic spider or two!

Tips and Tricks 3 is now up.